Peace: 1917

Red Cross is a worldwide organization whose members work to relieve human suffering. More than 175 nations have Red Cross or Red Crescent societies. Each national society operates its own program. However, Red Cross workers in all parts of the world are united in their aims. They help relieve human suffering during times of crisis or disaster. The organization has seven fundamental principles that guide its work: (1) humanity, (2) impartiality, (3) neutrality, (4) independence, (5) volunteerism, (6) universality, and (7) unity.

The name Red Cross comes from the organization's flag, a red cross on a white background. The flag honors Switzerland, where the Red Cross was founded in 1863. The Swiss flag is a white cross on a red field. Societies in most Muslim countries use a red crescent on a white field and call themselves Red Crescent societies. In Israel, the society is called the Magen David Adom and has a red star of David on a white field for its flag.

The American Red Cross

In the United States, the American Red Cross provides humanitarian services that include disaster relief, biomedical services, health and safety training, community services, and Armed Forces Emergency Services. The organization is supported by more than 1,200,000 Americans who serve as Red Cross volunteers annually. About 30,000 employees support the work of the volunteers.

Disaster services begin long before disaster strikes. Red Cross workers help communities prevent and prepare for disaster through comprehensive educational programs. The American Red Cross responds every year to more than 63,000 disasters, including house fires, chemical spills, tornadoes, floods, and hurricanes. Relief workers help families recover from tragedy by providing food, clothing, shelter, health care, and counseling.

Biomedical services: The Red Cross is the primary supplier of blood and blood products in the United States. The organization collects over 6 million units of blood from approximately 4 1/2 million donors each year. A nationwide network of tissue centers supplies about 20 percent of the tissue used for transplants in the United States, such as heart valves, skin, ligament, tendon, bone, and blood vessels. The Red Cross also conducts research to improve the safety of the nation's blood supply and develop potentially lifesaving medical products.

Health and safety training: The Red Cross provides health and safety training as part of its mission of emergency prevention and preparedness. Experts in medical and safety fields design the training programs to teach people the skills necessary to respond to an emergency. For example, the Red Cross offers instruction in first aid, including cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and use of an automated external defibrillator, a device to correct abnormal heart rhythms. It also provides training in lifeguarding and water safety, HIV/AIDS prevention, and other health and safety issues.

Community services: Red Cross chapters provide humanitarian services to help people within communities lead safer, healthier, more self-reliant lives. Services include food pantries and home-delivered meals, homeless shelters, school clubs, and nursing home volunteers.

Armed Forces Emergency Services (AFES) helps keep people in touch with family members serving in the United States military. The Red Cross locates military personnel and delivers information during times of personal crisis, such as a death or serious illness in the family. The organization also arranges emergency financial assistance to help military personnel meet family emergencies. AFES staff accompany military forces on missions to provide essential services as well as recreational activities to troops in the field. The AFES also offers counseling and assistance to veterans and furnishes trained volunteers to work in military medical facilities and veterans hospitals.

International services: The American Red Cross maintains relations with national societies in other countries and assists the societies in their work. It provides emergency relief, food and sanitation programs, and basic health care to disaster victims in other countries. It also offers training in international humanitarian law and helps reunite families separated by war, disasters, and other emergencies.

Organization: Volunteers and employed staff form the backbone of most Red Cross activities in the United States. Over 1,100 Red Cross chapters provide services to communities in every part of the country. Members of Red Cross chapters elect a volunteer board of directors to oversee chapter programs and services. Volunteers also serve on advisory boards for Red Cross blood collection regions and AFES stations.

Volunteers and employees work in partnership at all levels of the Red Cross. They manage local operations and serve on state service councils, on regional and area committees, and at Red Cross national headquarters.

American Red Cross headquarters are in Washington, D.C. A 50-member board of governors, made up of volunteers, oversees the organization and develops national policies. The president of the United States appoints the chairman of the board of governors and seven other board members. Representatives of chapters and blood collection regions elect 30 additional members at the organization's annual national convention. The board itself elects 12 additional members-at-large. The chairman nominates, and the board approves, the president and chief executive officer of the American Red Cross.

The Canadian Red Cross

The Canadian Red Cross Society operates nearly 9,000 clinics with a network of more than 70,000 volunteers to assist people in communities across the country. The Canadian Red Cross offers a wide variety of services.

Health services: The Red Cross in Canada has pioneered in many nursing projects. It has a number of outpost hospitals and nursing stations that serve remote areas. Hundreds of communities benefit from the free use of sickroom supplies provided by the Medical Equipment Loan Service. Registered nurses volunteer to teach basic home nursing.

Until 1998, the National Blood Transfusion Service was a major project of the Canadian Red Cross. In 1998, a new national agency called Canadian Blood Services officially took over collection and distribution of blood in Canada.

The Canadian Red Cross also provides first-aid training to teach citizens how to respond to situations involving personal injury or illness. Each year, more than 1 million Canadians benefit from Red Cross swimming and water-safety training programs. Other safety promotion campaigns teach people how to prevent accidents and respond quickly to emergencies.

Community-based services include providing in-home assistance to help elderly or sick individuals maintain their independence and remain in their own home. Other programs help educate children and adults about ways to recognize and prevent domestic abuse.

Disaster services: All provincial divisions of the Canadian Red Cross are prepared to give emergency disaster relief. Their services include food, shelter, clothing, medical assistance, registration of disaster victims, and answers to inquiries during the emergency.

The Canadian Red Cross supplies clothing and other items to national societies in countries throughout the world. It also sends professional and technical personnel to international disaster areas when requested to do so by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies or the International Committee of the Red Cross. The Tracing and Reunion Bureau obtains health and welfare reports on people throughout the world. This bureau of the Canadian Red Cross also traces missing persons.

Organization: The Canadian Red Cross is governed at all levels by volunteer members. The national headquarters are in Ottawa. To deliver services throughout the country, the Canadian Red Cross is organized into four zones: Western, Ontario, Quebec, and Atlantic. The zones are divided into provincial and territorial divisions. Some divisions are divided further into regional offices, branches, and smaller units, depending on the size of the community and nature of the services provided. There are more than 400 branches, the primary operational units of the Canadian Red Cross, across the nation. Many smaller communities have informal Red Cross units, affiliated with a branch or region, to provide services locally.

The Red Cross in other lands

The American and Canadian Red Cross societies belong to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, which is made up of over 176 national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies in all parts of the world. All member national societies cooperate through the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (formerly the League of Red Cross Societies), headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The federation works to help all national societies develop programs and meet the needs of their citizens.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, also in Geneva, serves as a neutral intermediary during conflicts between nations, for the protection of war victims and adherence to the Geneva Conventions. The Geneva Conventions provide guidelines for the protection and humane treatment of wounded soldiers, prisoners of war, and civilian victims of war and civil unrest. The League of Red Cross Societies and the International Committee shared the 1963 Nobel Peace Prize.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, the Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and the national societies are independent bodies that together make up the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. The International Red Cross Conference is the highest deliberative body of the international Red Cross. Delegates from Red Cross groups and representatives of governments that signed the Geneva Conventions attend the conference about every two years to discuss the Geneva Conventions and world humanitarian problems that involve cooperation between the Red Cross and governments.

History

Beginnings: Jean Henri Dunant, a Swiss philanthropist, founded the international Red Cross. He was touring Italy in 1859 during the Austro-Sardinian War. Dunant saw the field at Solferino the day after 40,000 people had been killed or wounded in a battle. Horrified at the suffering of the wounded, he formed a group of volunteers to help them.

In 1862, Dunant published a book called Un Souvenir de Solferino (Recollections of Solferino). It ended with the plea, "Would it not be possible to found and organize in all civilized countries permanent societies of volunteers who in time of war would give help to the wounded without regard for their nationality?" The appeal won favorable response. On Oct. 26, 1863, delegates from 16 nations and several charitable organizations met in Geneva to discuss Dunant's idea. This conference laid the groundwork for the Red Cross movement and chose the organization's symbol.

Delegates from 12 European nations met in Geneva in August 1864, on invitation from the Swiss Federal Council. Two U.S. observers attended. Out of this meeting came the First Geneva (or Red Cross) Convention. Later treaties amended and improved it.

In the United States, Congress did not ratify the Geneva Convention for 18 years, fearing foreign entanglements. The American Association for the Relief of Misery on the Battlefields was organized during this time. It adopted the red cross as its emblem. This group disbanded in 1871 because the United States had not yet ratified the Geneva Convention. Clara Barton worked to have the treaty ratified and helped establish the American Association of the Red Cross in 1881. President Chester A. Arthur finally signed the treaty on March 1, 1882. The Senate accepted it a few days later without a dissenting vote. The Red Cross association was later reorganized, and in 1905 Congress granted it a new charter that established the basic organization of today's American Red Cross.

The American Red Cross grew during World War I (1914-1918). It met the welfare needs of rapidly expanding military forces. Red Cross field directors and other workers served troops in the United States and overseas. In 1917, Home Service was set up in many communities to provide a link between military personnel and their families. The Red Cross also organized and equipped 58 base hospitals, 54 of which went overseas. The Junior Red Cross, founded in 1917, gave U.S. schoolchildren a chance to help the war effort.

After the war, the Red Cross aided millions of veterans and helped relieve war-caused suffering in many lands. During the 1920's, the Red Cross established 2,400 public health nursing services throughout the United States.

During World War II (1939-1945), the Red Cross Army-Navy Blood Donor Service collected more than 13 million pints (6,150,000 liters) of blood. Whole blood was flown from the United States to a warfront for the first time during the Korean War (1950-1953). Also during the 1950's, the Red Cross aided refugees of Algerian and Hungarian revolts.

The Red Cross spent nearly $146 million during the 1960's for disaster relief and rehabilitation. The organization provided assistance for survivors of earthquakes in Chile (1960), Yugoslavia (1963), and Alaska (1964). The Red Cross also directed the shipment of $53 million worth of donated food and drugs to Cuba in exchange for the release of about 1,100 prisoners and refugees.

In the late 1960's and early 1970's, the Red Cross provided hospital and recreational programs for U.S. armed forces in Vietnam. In 1973, the Red Cross assisted released American prisoners of war. It also worked with the U.S. government in 1975 on the resettlement of refugees from Southeast Asia in the United States. Major foreign relief efforts by the American Red Cross followed the earthquakes in Nicaragua in 1972, Guatemala in 1976, and several other nations in the 1980's.

The American Red Cross also took part in the Cambodian refugee relief operation in 1979 and 1980, the medical and food relief effort in Poland in 1982, the drought relief operation in Africa in 1985, and the volcanic eruption effort in Colombia in 1985. In 1990, the Red Cross began refugee relief operations in Jordan as a result of the events that led to the Persian Gulf War of 1991. After the war, it aided Kurdish refugees in camps in Kuwait, Iraq, and Turkey. In 2001, the American Red Cross, working in cooperation with several national societies, provided relief after floods in Mozambique and Malawi and devastating earthquakes in India.

In Canada: George S. Ryerson, an army doctor, founded the Red Cross movement in Canada. He first flew a flag with a red cross on a white background while serving in the Canadian Army Medical Services during the North West Rebellion of 1885. In 1896, Ryerson organized a Canadian branch of the British Red Cross. This branch developed into the Canadian Red Cross Society and was incorporated by an act of the Canadian Parliament in 1909. The International Committee of the Red Cross recognized the Canadian Red Cross in 1927.

Critically reviewed by the American Red Cross